Ohio Poverty Report Issued: Mixed News For Mansfield, Richland

The Ohio Development Services Agency has just issued The Ohio Poverty Report, a document outlining research into the numbers behind the reality of low-income Ohioans. Its pages suggest a subdued but not altogether unhopeful picture for the local economy.

Based largely on US Census Bureau complied and released information and other federal and Ohio agencies, it is designed to explore trends and comparisons for poverty in the Buckeye State’s cities and counties.

General findings of the report include the following, among others:

An estimated 1,583,000 people in Ohio were poor – that was 14.0 percent of all persons for whom poverty status was determined, and a poverty rate slightly greater than the national rate of 13.4 percent.

An estimated 290,000, or 9.8 percent, of Ohio families were poor; the corresponding U.S. rate was 9.5 percent (family poverty rates are lower because family members share resources, and not all persons are in families).

The latest American Community Survey data for sub-state areas show: o 47 of Ohio’s 88 counties had poverty rates below the national average of 14.6 percent; 41 were above the average (averages based on the 2013-2017 five-year dataset).

Delaware, Warren, Medina and Geauga had the lowest poverty rates, ranging from 5.1 to 6.5 percent – all are suburban metropolitan area counties; Athens, Scioto, Adams and Meigs had the highest poverty rates, ranging from 30.2 to 22.5 percent – all are Appalachian (five-year averages).

16.2 percent of the people in urban places (densely populated areas of 2,500 or more) were poor, compared with 10.3 percent in rural areas (farms and smaller places); within urban areas, 26.3 percent of those living in the central or principal cites of metropolitan areas were poor, while 10.3 percent of residents of other urban areas were poor (five-year averages of area-type summaries.)

13 cities, including seven metropolitan area central cities and four small college towns, had poverty rates at or above Ohio’s metropolitan-area-central-city average of 26.3 percent (five-year averages).

Additional general findings included a comparison of rates for married/unmarried, with/without children, those receiving cash assistance/not receiving, college-educated/not, age groups, seniors, ethnicity, and gender.

County-based findings revealed that almost all counties with metropolitan area central cities, including Richland, had rates higher than the state’s average 14.9 percent (only Clark and Summit Counties fared better). Richland County’s average rate in 2013-2017 was 15.6 percent, higher than it was in 2007-2011 and almost 50% higher than it was in 1999. That shared, the number of people in poverty appears to be in a slow downward trajectory since 2014.

Some 38% of Richland Countians live below the rate of 200% the poverty level.